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Friday, 28 September 2018

When a girl or a
woman is empowered, she becomes a catalyst for positive change whose success
benefits everyone around her. Social, political and economical empowerment of
women is one of the core activities of PECUC. In the beginning, around 1991-92,
PECUC started forming women groups in Balianta block of Khordha district. It
took around two and half years to form the groups & open bank accounts of
13 women self help groups. These groups impacted the formation of more than hundred
groups in few years in this area. There were a lot of issues for women like
coming out of house, which was again a huge struggle for them to meet their groups,
to talk to them freely and to seat in a place outside their home. We had to
first interact with the male members of the family to talk to the women group
members. While opening the bank account even the women group members faced many
constraints. Through intervention of NABARD we were able to convince the
bankers and finally opened their bank accounts. It was also difficult for women
to save Rs. 5 per month. Then they started keeping handful of rice & at the
end of the month they sold it that gave them a calculated savings of Rs 20-25
per head. Slowly, the movement took up. After intensive training and continuous
interaction, the women came out and started forming groups & by 2001 we were
able to form 118 women self help groups in Balianta block, and by the end of
2014, PECUC was successful in promotion of 348 women self-help groups in its
operational areas of Khordha, Keonjhar and Balasore districts, having 4191
women members with Rs. 1,36,01,881 savings in different banks.

In the year 1991-92,
when PECUC started facilitating the formation of women SHGs in Balianta block
of Khordha district, it took 2 years to promote 15 groups in 13 villages. These
women self help groups are not only involved in thrift and credit management
but also actively engaged in supplementing the family against violence on
women. Remarkable changes have been observed since then. Women have come forward
to solve the problems of their families and neighbours on their own. They have
been pioneer in activities like anti liquor movement, education for girls and
increasing access of poor people to various poverty alleviation programmes of
the Govt, stopping child marriage, stopping child labour, reproductive child
health, nutrition, organic farming, etc.

Laxmipriya Sahoo, Ward Member, of
Bainchua Panchayat, Balianta block, Khordha,
aged around 40 years, belongs to OBC
group. She intervened into a marriage and stopped it as the bride and groom
were minors. Anima (Fake Name), a 17 years old girl
of Balianta block, Khordha district was studying +2 in Balakati College. A
fellow student from Pipili fell in love with her. He then started bothering her
in college and on social media. Frightened of this, Anima informed her parents
about it. Her parents went to the boy’s house to talk to his parents regarding
this. But things went ugly and they had exchange of words and threatened them.
The incident shook the girl and her family. She got scared to go out. Seeing
this, her parents decided to get her married to the son of one of their distant
relatives from Balakati. They got engaged and the boy who used to bother her
got the news of this. The boy then informed about this to the DSWO as the girl
was underage. The marriage was to happen on 19th April 2018. PECUC’s team got
information about this & informed CDPO of Balianta Block. Then PECUC
team along with CDPO talked with the Sarpanch and Ward members of the
girl’s village to be present in the fact finding team. But Sarpanch
hesitated and requested to stay away from it. The Sarpanch was scared that if
this incident was disclosed to public it will bring shame to their village so
he assured that he will handle it in his own way. But Laxmipriya and the Ward
Members joined the team. They sat down with both the families and informed
them about the laws related to child marriage. The girl’s parents informed
that the girl is already traumatized because of the previous incident and has
become depressed and making suicidal attempt. If the marriage breaks then she
might do any harm to her own life. The team and others got shocked hearing
this. So they decided to counsel the girl. They assured her that the boy will
no longer bother her and also the marriage will definitely happen once she
turns 18. This brought a change in her mind and she promised that she will wait
to marry until she turns 18. Then the parents were made to sign a declaration
that said although the families can have a usual relationship but the parents
will not try or force the girl to get married before she turns 18. And she can
marry the guy she got engaged with if she wants.

Sabita Bhoi, Ward member of
village Saleswar, Balianta Gram Panchayat of Balianta Block, Khordha Districts
of Odisha is also a member of Alibha Federation. Earlier she didn’t know
anything about Gram Panchayat. In 2017 Panchayat election villagers asked her
to stand in the Election. She is a poor lady and only daughter of her parents.
Her father passed away when she was a child. She and her mother were living in
a difficult situation. Her mother arranged a marriage for her at Berhampur.
After 2 years of the marriage she had a daughter. They named her Rashmi because
she thought that her daughter would bring light in her life. After the birth of
her daughter, her husband left her. Until now she has not received any
information about him. Her mother and she worked as daily wage workers in
different household and gave her daughter a formal education. Today she is
doing +3 arts. She then diverted her attention towards the responsibility of
Panchayat. In her village a 16 years old girl named Anu Das (Fake Name)fled away with a ST boy of snake charmer
community (Kela). Sabita along with the villagers searched for her, failing
which they lodged a FIR in the Police Station. Police searched for them and
found them in an objectionable position. They were brought to Balianta PS.
There was a compromise. In front of the authority an undertaking was signed by
both the parents of the boy and girl. It was decided that the girl will remain
with her parents house till she attains the age of 18. And will marry the boy
after she attains the age of maturity. She will not be subjected to any kind of
mental torture from both sides during the intervening period. The marriage of
the girl with boy was postponed for appropriate time. She got full-fledged help
and cooperation from PECUC and the ward member in this endeavour of her.

Jhuna Mallick, belonging to SC community, is working
as the Ward Member at Kothapatana, Balianta block, Khordha. She has studied
upto 5th class. Her father died when she was a child. Jhuna’s mother got her
married early at the age of 15 and was a housewife for 13 years. Her husband is
a daily wager; some days he gets work and some days he doesn’t. Thus, it gets
difficult to manage the livelihood of their family. So, she became a member of SHG
and took a loan to open a grocery store in front of her house. The money that
comes from the store is spent on her kids’ education. When her husband has no
work, he helps her with the store and household chores. Even though Jhuna is
not very educated, she manages everything. She loves helping her community for
which the community loves her a lot. Jhuna has been involved with PECUC’s
activities since 2015. In 2017, Panchayat Election, the ward no. 16 had a woman
reserved seat, so the Women Rights Committee decided to enrol Jhuna Mallick to
stand in the election from that ward. Although her family was a bit sceptical
about the decision, she agreed to contest the election. Two other women were
also contesting against her. On moral grounds, she didn’t want to go against
the women of her community, she decided to withdraw from the election. However,
the people persuaded her not to withdraw her candidacy. Many rumours were
spread about her but she kept calm and won the election by 130 votes. On March
10th, 2017, she took her oath to see her village as her family and promised
development, but she didn’t know how and where to start from. PECUC lend out a
helping hand. She took part in the 3-day leadership development training. She
would attend all the panchayat meetings but she hesitated to voice her
thoughts. She would come to PECUC’s coordinator and discuss her problems. Now,
she speaks her mind in meeting confidently. She conducted Palli Sabha Meeting
and assessed all the issues and presented them in the Gram Sabha Meeting.
PECUC, then gave training on finance management, which she attended. With time,
her enthusiasm to work for the community increased. She walks 5 km from her
home to the panchayat office every day. She took up a lot of work in 2017-18.
The school had in their village had only one tube-well and it wasn’t working
properly. She provided water supply to the school. She also helped Manju Das
get the widow pension scheme and also helped Subhalaxmi Mallick to get the PMAY
house. She also provided toilets to 2 families and enrolled 4 families under
the BPL scheme. She helped 4 families of the deceased get Rs. 2000 each under
the Harishchandra Yojana. She did all this with the help of the Panchayat Fund.
Apart from this, she’s also a member of GKS and holds meeting every month. She
also used the Panchayat Fund to construct a dustbin. She’s also a member in
Kanchilo School SMC. She visits the school and AWC twice or thrice every week.
She monitors the education and the MDM food provided in the school. We are
proud of her and the accomplishments that she has achieved in this short term.

Apart from social
issues, many income generation activities has also been carried out by the
women group members that includes turmeric processing, petty shops, goatery,
fishery, pisciculture, vegetable cultivation, pig rearing, poultry, badi and
papad making, tailoring, essence stick, leaf plate making, rice processing,
band party, floriculture, cane work, diary farming, minor forest product
collection, dry fish, sheep rearing, bamboo work, pickle, ginger cultivation,
duck rearing, popped rice, etc. PECUC’s effort to build the capacity of women
on different areas has resulted in building their self confidence, increasing their
participation in decision making process in family and community, pallisava
& gram sava, as well as Panchayati Raj Institutions. PECUC is working with
women panchayat functionaries of Balianta, Bolgarh block of Khordha district
with The Hunger Project to enhance their capacity, continuous training,
federation building of women PRIs at cluster level & Block Level, Need
based training on various issues, Gramsava & pallisava mobilization, monitoring
scheme programmes /ICDS /MDM/School programme/Sanitation, etc, environment
protection activities like planting trees, campaign on end violence against
women, public hearing on DV cases with women commission, interface with Govt
officials, changing seating arrangement at panchayat level, etc. PECUC has opened
Gender panchayat resource centre at all panchayats of Balianta block & also
at Bolgarh. This centre is managed by women PRIs of that area.

Thursday, 6 September 2018

The expression-child marriage is a compendious one. For some it is
fun and excitement and for some it is end of parental liability. Again, some
relate Child Marriage either with cultureor religion. But, it seems nobody understand the plight of the children
who live under the bondage of forced or obtuse matrimony. Since 1929 both the
British and the Government of India have been trying to eradicate Child
marriage in India but the fact and figures present disappointing picture. As
per the 205th Report of the Law Commission of India, February 2008, child
marriages continue to be a fairly widespread social evil in India and in a
study carried out between the years 1998 to 1999 on women aged 15-19 it was
found that 33.8% were currently married or in a union. In 2000 the UN
Population Division recorded that 9.5% of boys and 35.7 % of girls aged between
15-19 were married. However,while regional disparities exist, child marriage has
significantly decreased from 47 per cent (2006) to 27 per cent (2016).Despite this drop, nearly 1.5 million girls under 18 year
of age enter into premature matrimony. Therefore, the salient issue is how to
minimized the frequency of Child Marriage in India. Sociologists argue that for variety of reasons, child marriages are
prevalent in many parts of our country but the reality is more complex than
what it seems to be.Can alone law
do it? I know many are skeptic about this but if we look at the provisions of
Section 16 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 it provides the
statutory duties of Child Marriage Prohibition Officers. As I understand these
duties are not explanatory and need to be crafted properly. Many might have
observed two forms of Child marriage ie, Minor’s Marriage with the consent of
the parents and guardians and Minor’s Marriage without the consent of their
parents and guardians. In both the cases the legitimacy of marriage often presented
before the honourable court.

The legal principle
that a marriage in contravention of clause (iii) of section 5 of the HMA was-neither
void nor voidable, was established prior to the enactment and enforcement of
the Prohibition of Child marriage Act, 2006. The principle which is now
applicable is that a marriage in contravention of clause (iii) of section 5 of
the HMA is not ipso facto void but could be void if any of the circumstances
enumerated in section 12 of the Prohibition of Child marriage Act,
2006 is triggered and that, in any event, all such marriages would be voidable
at the option of the ‘child' spouse in terms of section 3 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act,
2006.

The Prohibition of Child Marriage
Act, 2006. extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir;
and it applies also to all citizens of India without and beyond India: Provided
that nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the Re-noncants of the Union
territory of Pondicherry.The
Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint; and
different dates may be appointed for different States and any reference in any
provision to the commencement of this Act shall be construed in relation to any
State as a reference to the coming into force of that provision in that State.

Sometimes parents refuse undertake
the responsibility of minor bride and bride groom.(especially after kidnapping
and rape) Section 5 of the enactment provides Custody and maintenance of
children of child marriages and Section 6. of the Act provides Legitimacy of
children born of child marriages and it has been done in the best interest of
the Child. The District enjoys the power to pass appropriate order for the
custody of the Children (Section 7). Therefore, should JJ Act 2015, Domestic
Violence Act, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and the
Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 be engaged to tackle the situation? Or the Parent
legislation should specifically make provisions to that effect?

Section 9. Punishment for male adult marrying a child.(2 Yrs and
fine up to 2lakh or both)Section10.
Punishment for solemnising a child marriage and Section11. Punishment for promoting or permitting solemnisation of
child marriages. Sometimes social activist and hardliner argue for stringent
punishment to minimize offences. The quantum of sentence has been a contesting
subject and the learned house should debate.In
Shankar Kisanrao Khade vs. State of Maharashtra[(2013) 5 SCC 546], referring to
the recent decisions (of about fifteen years), the Supreme Court has summarized
the mitigating factors and aggravating factors. In State of Rajasthan v. Jamil Khan, (2013) 10 SCC 721 the
apex court observed that “A balance-sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances
has to be drawn up and in doing so the mitigating circumstances have to be
accorded full weightage and a just balance has to be struck between the
aggravating and the mitigating circumstances before the option of sentence is
exercised”.

Last but
not the least, Section 13
provides Power of court to issue injunction prohibiting child marriages and
under the provision the District Magistrate who is deemed to be the Child
Marriage Prohibition Officerenjoys wide
power to prohibit child marriage under his jurisdiction. As I have seen
District Magistrates are overburdened with their normal administrative work.
Should State Government appoint specifically appoint Child Marriage Prohibition
Officers vested with Magisterial powers other than District Magistrates?

Child marriage is a social evil
which has the potentialities of dangers to the life and health of a female
child and can play multi-dimensional havoc in their lives, who cannot withstand
the stress and strains of married life and it leads to early deaths of such
minor mothers. It also reflects the chauvinistic attribute of the Indian
society. Time has come stop child marriage for good as it violates the Rights of Child
and the basic tenets of Human Rights.

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Peoples’ Cultural Centre (PECUC) is a non-profit voluntary organization formally registered during 1990, with the purpose to empower the weaker sections of the society. During last 25 years PECUC worked with children, women, the aged, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other socio-economically backward and marginalized communities in the state of Odisha.
PECUC was initiated in late 1980s by a group of social activists, professionals from different background, artists and National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteers to help the children of different slums and outlying villages of Bhubaneswar to provide a platform for the children to explore their potential.
However, PECUC during last twenty five years of journey has focused on Child welfare including education for children, health, Emergency relief and rehabilitation, Women welfare and empowerment, Welfare of aged, Plantation & Environment protection, Promoting livelihood , agriculture development, capacity building of key stakeholders, welfare of schedule caste and schedule tribe communities and other marginalized sections of the society.